Prosecutors announce discovery of classified Guantánamo prison videos

Prosecutors have discovered secret videos of guards forcibly removing the accused naval destroyer bombing mastermind Cole from his Guantánamo Bay cell around the time federal agents allege he voluntarily confessed to his role in the Qaeda plot, the chief prosecutor told the examining magistrate on Wednesday.

The surprise revelation could lead to more delays in Guantanamo’s longest-running death penalty case, which has been under investigation since 2011. The judge is retiring from the military and has scheduled closing arguments for next week on whether statements should be allowed before 2007. by the defendant, Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, at his final trial.

But the videotapes were not turned over to the judge or defense attorneys. Instead, the prosecution, Michael J. O’Sullivan, said the tapes were so sensitive that government agents were preparing them for screening in secret environments — after certain information was apparently obscured.

Agents testified that in January 2007 Mr Nashiri bragged about his role in the Cole attack, which killed 17 sailors off Yemen in October 2000. tortured before.

Wednesday said Mr. O’Sullivan said government officials showed the first of up to 17 videos to defense attorneys this week after some sort of classified processing he wouldn’t describe in an open court hearing. At least some of them showed Mr Nashiri being forced from his cell in late 2006 and early 2007, around the time of his interrogations, Mr O’Sullivan said.

The technique has typically been performed at Guantánamo prison by seven specially trained guards in black riot gear, their faces obscured, who placed a defiant prisoner face down on the ground and then handcuffed. In 2017, the prison published photos of soldiers training how to do it.

Annie W. Morgan, one of Mr. Nashiri’s lawyers, said the only video the defense lawyers have been allowed to see shows guards slashing the prisoner’s ankles eight days before his 2007 interrogations, but none of them he was handcuffed and removed from his cell. .

Defense attorneys originally requested videos of the detainee’s treatment at Camp 7 in 2011 when he was charged, the judge said in a ruling last year. Prosecutors had replied that there were none.

Then, more than a year ago, Mr. Nashiri a prison log entry describing how guards cut the prisoner’s ankles with handcuffs because a key had broken off inside, and that a special unit of military cameramen had been called. They then asked prosecutors for a video of the episode.

On June 16, Ms Morgan said, the prosecution revealed the existence of more than a dozen videos, including one showing the ankle cuffs being removed.

In searching for video of that encounter, prosecutors apparently found the others.

Ms Morgan said Guantánamo prison records in 2006-2007 showed that just before his interrogations, Mr Nashiri was “the victim of an increasing number” of forcible removals from his cell. She called it “a deliberate effort to remind him of the harsh treatment he received on CIA black sites and what would happen if he didn’t cooperate.”

At the black locations, employment agency workers waterboarded him, locked him in a wooden box, threatened him with death, and handcuffed him in embarrassing positions to get his cooperation. He was kept in isolation and sometimes rectally abused.

While Mr. Nashiri was in Thailand in 2002, the CIA made videotapes showing the treatment of him and another prisoner known as Abu Zubaydah, but destroyed them three years later. Instead of that destroyed evidence, Mr. Nashiri in Camp 7 Guantánamo Prison in 2006 and 2007 “showing at least a glimpse of that behavior,” Ms. Morgan said.

The judge asked the prosecutor about the national security justification for withholding copies of the tapes from the judiciary and defense, suggesting in open court that it may have been the need to protect “tactics”.

Mr. O’Sullivan replied, “It’s only approved for viewing. That’s about all I can tell you at this point.”

Once the videos were processed, he said, prosecutors would offer classified screenings on a rolling basis, perhaps as early as next week.